Description
"If you choose to fight, then you must choose to win."
Wyrren Jadis had once been heir to a duchy, and for an afternoon she had been queen of Marla. Now she is an exile and a scholar, living on the charity of Sebastian del Torlo: ruler of Hael Malstrom and her unrequited love.
Wyrren doesn’t know why anyone would be able to threaten Sebastian in his own palace, but when she sees a guest attack him during a private meeting without recompense, she’s determined to find out why.

Summary
Wyrren Jadis was a queen for half an hour before fleeing into exile. Her friend and unrequited love, Sebastian, the ruler of her new country, is about to get engaged to someone else. When Wyrren learns that Sebastian is being threatened-- and hiding it-- she decides to get involved.

Excerpt
When she was very young, Wyrren’s nannies would tell her how lucky she was to be alive. Stupid little girls like her were usually left to freeze on the Marlan ice.
Back then she had lived in a set of rooms in the back of the Renideo fortress, and every so often she would be brought out in her best dress and paraded before her father and mother. Wyrren was to be silent unless she was addressed, to speak carefully when she was called to. Her frozen lips often mangled words beyond understanding, and sometimes, when she was alone in her room she would stay up all night practicing speech, trying to get the sounds right.
By day she would play with her toys and listen to the adults and the things they’d said to each other, scandals and inner-palace politics, who was hated, who was admired, suppositions when she might get a normal sibling, why Duke Chyril Jadis insisted on keeping her, what things would be like when Wyrren grew older. They weren’t shy about speaking in front of her. Stupid little girls couldn’t understand gossip.
Wyrren’s mother died just before she turned six. Her mother had been born a princess, and so nobles from far beyond the Renideo duchy had risked the snows to travel to her funeral. Wyrren had to attend, so her nannies had brought her out in her best dress and let her eat breakfast with the nobles. Wyrren’s mouth never fully sealed—at that age she hadn’t yet mastered tricks to keep food from falling out of her mouth while she chewed. The noble’s curiosity and initial interest in her passed as soon as it had come, and they politely ignored her afterward.
When Wyrren’s father excused himself, most in the dining hall accompanied him. Wyrren’s nannies snatched her away from her meal mid-bite. Wyrren remembered yelling and trying to grab the table. She had been hungry.
Young Sebastian del Torlo had been present. He stood. He ordered the nannies to release Wyrren, saw her returned to her breakfast, and told them off for being so horrible to a little girl. The nannies had protested that it was their orders, that little Lady Jadis was simple and not to be there unless needed.
Sebastian knelt down beside Wyrren and studied her, a finger on her chin, turning her head to and fro gently. First he asked how they were sure. Then he asked Wyrren if she wanted to learn a new game.
They played chess all morning and into the afternoon. By the third game Wyrren had memorized the rules. By the fifth, she’d taken a few of Sebastian’s pieces. She remembered her father returning and watching them play, how Sebastian had asked her father for a quiet word and pulled him aside. Wyrren still remembered the first sentence as they walked away—”Your ‘simple’ daughter appears to be exceptionally brilliant, Chyril.”
She was given a governess, a host of tutors, and a proper room the next day. Her father began to visit and talk with her often. Her father’s subjects began to listen to what she said. From disdain to respect, from weakness to influence. She never saw her nannies again.
Who wouldn’t love Sebastian after that?